Creating a lasting legacy

Florida State head coach Jennifer Hyde is the architect behind the success of the Seminoles women’s tennis program.(Photo: Perrone Ford/FSU Athletics)

A decade and a half later, Jennifer Hyde remembers where she was when she was offered a head coaching job at her alma mater, Florida State University.

“I was in Houston and Kim Record — Florida State’s Senior Associate Director of Athletics from 1995-2008 — called me, and I think I was at Target,” Hyde said. “I was in the parking lot, and she called and offered me the position. It took me a couple of weeks for it all to set in, and maybe a couple of months, but that was still a day that it’s hard to believe it happened.”

Hyde is the architect for the Seminoles women’s tennis program, which enjoyed the most success — prior to her head coaching tenure — when she captained the team as a senior in 1994. It was during her playing days at FSU that she came to the conclusion that she wanted to pursue a coaching career. Following the dismissal of the coach that recruited her, Patti Henderson, Alice Reen replaced her and provided the type of leadership Hyde said she needed.

Florida State head coach Jennifer Hyde is in her 15th year at the helm of the women’s tennis team.(Photo: Ross Obley/Seminoles)

“If it weren’t for her [Reen], I know I wouldn’t be here,” Hyde said.

After leaving Reen and Tallahassee upon her graduation to work as an assistant for Iowa, Alabama and UNC, Hyde built a repertoire based on embracing all failure to avoid complacency — a message she instilled to the very competitive college-athletes she coached.

Hyde first played competitively at age eight, growing up in a family that birthed her connection to the sport. Tennis for Hyde, went from a social activity during her childhood starting with father-daughter tournaments in her hometown of Alpharetta, Ga. to a calling in life.

After five years as Houston’s head coach, Hyde began her mission at Florida State that has yielded 11 NCAA Tournament appearances, a 2018 Elite Eight appearance and several program-defining moments along the way.

Whether it was beating No. 3 Duke and No. 4 UNC in back-to-back regular season matches in 2011, or defeating the defending-national championship-winning Gators in two matches last season — one of which at the USTA National Campus in front of the largest women’s tennis crowd ever — Hyde’s work and that of that of the players she’s developed has paid dividends on the grandest of stages.

“The importance in life of taking the time to pause and enjoy the moments, creating them first and then enjoying them,” Hyde said. “Everything, it’s so fleeting, it’s so distracted. Instagram’s coming, the emails are coming and we move on to what’s next and better, but we have to take a moment to celebrate the great things we do accomplish.”

From inheriting a team that finished with a ranking of No. 72 in her first year at the helm of the program, to competing for ACC championships and national titles in year 15, the program’s rise to unprecedented levels of success represent a culmination of her work as the winningest-coach in program history.

Members of her extended tennis family, growing larger by the year, still represent and return to the program years after they last set foot on the courts at the Scott Speicher Tennis Center.

Florida State head coach Jennifer Hyde has led the Seminoles to 11 NCAA Tournament appearances and several program-defining moments along the way.(Photo: Rob Davis/Democrat)

“I’ve got people coming back that were managers, eight, nine, ten years ago still coming back ...” Hyde said. “Former players, former student trainers and it's because they invested in the program. These people come out of the woodworks after years and they’ve been a part of it because its special.”

The 2019 version of her squad is special. Comprised of a group of eight women from seven countries, they’ve bonded over the game they love and have gone as far as North Carolina to witness women’s soccer capture its second national championship in December.

“There’s an intensity and there’s a responsibility that each of them are taking on themselves right now that I haven’t seen ever since I’ve been here at Florida State,” Hyde said. “It is a very meat and potatoes, competitive, ruthless, attack mindset every time we’re in practice and competing so far.”

Hyde remains as adamant as ever that her team develops and maintains that sort of discipline in all facets of life, which she too has relied upon during her journey from FSU tennis player to head coach.